Look what free parking has done to us
As cities cram more and more housing and retail into the urban area, available parking diminishes. Some current residents in Portland are whining about the free curbside parking that’s getting more difficult to access because of all the new residents who don’t have private parking spaces (Beaven, 2012). This could be partly remedied by building parking structures into new developments: two parking spots for each new apartment, and for every 250 square feet of retail space, another parking spot built. This is actually a horrible idea, though.
If a new apartment building does have parking built into the facility, the cost of that addition would of course be put on the tenants. The American Housing Survey found that 16% of housing cost is attributable to parking spots (Coren, 2017). This seems fair if the tenants have a vehicle in a dense urban area, but if the cost is passed on to residents whether they own a car or not, then this is an equity issue. Building housing without parking would be one way to keep costs lower and more fair for those without cars. Developers state that their intention when building new apartment complexes with little to no private parking is to attract tenants who are cyclists and transit users; that’s in line with the direction that the city of Portland wants to go, but the majority of tenants who are moving into these new developments are automobile owners parking for free in the streets (Njus 2012). If building housing without parking is meant to invite residents who don’t own cars, it’s not working, and perhaps a different remedy is needed to address the lack of parking.
Some Portlanders (many of whom moved here not that long ago) are not happy about the influx of new residents, because housing is getting costly and competitive, and on top of that, they can’t park their car, or drive around without being inconvenienced by congested traffic. Not being able to control the curb in front of their home can be a maddening situation for some people, like Susan Dowiasz, who just last week shot at Jose Martinez and his colleague because he parked in front of her house for a few minutes to run into the store (Bailey, 2018). Dowiasz, like so many others, seems to feel entitled to that valuable strip of pavement in front of her home. I wonder how many people are aware of the true value of a parking space. Donald Shoup measures the value in the thousands, and states that a parking space can have more value than the car parked in it. A Los Angeles parking space can be worth $31,000 (Cowen, 2010).
In my opinion, one of the great things about the new apartments filling inner Portland is that they don’t have private parking. While this may lead to jammed up street parking, ultimately that is a good thing too. Inconveniencing drivers is one part of an effective strategy to get people into other modes of travel.
Performance pricing would be another great part of the strategy. People are reluctant to give up driving, and even when free parking spots are very difficult to find, people will circle blocks until something is available. Shoup calculates a shockingly high amount of wasted miles driven, just to find an open spot. In a 15-block area of Manhattan, the cumulative miles driven while looking for parking in one year is equal to 14 trips around the Earth (Shoup, 2011). Maybe drivers would think twice about driving to their destination if their parking were priced at its true value.
Wells Wait
Edited by Sofia Alvarez-Castro & Eavan Moore
References
Beaven, S. (2012). “New Portland apartment buildings with no parking have neighbors worried about congested streets.” The Oregonian. Retrieved from https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/07/new_portland_apartment_buildin.html
Bailey, E. (2018). “Driver shot at over parking too close to Portland home says he’s glad no one was hurt.” The Oregonian. Retrieved from https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2018/11/driver_shot_at_over_parking_to.html
Njus, E. (2012). “Objections aired at forum on no-parking apartments, but parking minimum seems unlikely.” The Oregonian. Retrieved from https://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2012/11/objections_aired_at_forum_on_n.html
Cowen, T. (2010). “Free parking comes at a price.” The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view.html?_r=0
Shoup, D. (2011). “Free parking or free markets.” Access 38, Spring 2011. Retrieved from https://www.accessmagazine.org/spring-2011/free-parking-free-markets/
Coren, M. (2017). “If you’re renting a US city apartment without a car, 16% of your rent pays for parking you don’t need.” Quartz. Retrieved from https://qz.com/1029925/if-youre-renting-a-city-apartment-without-a-car-16-of-your-rent-pays-for-parking-you-dont-need/
Great post! I think viewing the difficulty to find parking a solution to other transportation problems facing Portland is a great way to understand how transportation can operate on a give or take system.
ReplyDeleteI liked this topic, its a big issue with the growing population. I agree that the best way to mitigate this problem is to get rid of it all together, if theres no parking there will be less cars. Change is always going to upset people and cause problems to the current system, we have to recognizing that change in a certain direction will inevitably be better for the greater good,
ReplyDeleteHi Wells, It's an exciting post! A few weeks ago I was reading an article that says: "if you can't ban cars in downtown, just take away the parking space." The truth is people who live in downtown have a significant number of mode choices. Therefore, it is expected for the residents downtown not to own vehicles. I think, removing all on-street parking in the central district is a good strategy but obviously will make some household unhappy. While removing parking space can impact on the car ownership, it can also affect the travel behavior and choices of the residents.
ReplyDelete